A blog which is dedicated to the use of Traditional (Aristotelian/Thomistic) moral reasoning in the analysis of current
events. Readers are challenged to reject the Hegelian Dialectic and
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Friday, April 8, 2011

The Peasants Need Pitchforks

By Robert Scheer

April 06, 2011 "TruthDig" -- - A “working class hero,” John Lennon told us in his song of that title, “is something to be/ Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV/ And you think you’re so clever and classless and free/ But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see.”

The delusion of a classless America in which opportunity is equally distributed is the most effective deception perpetrated by the moneyed elite that controls all the key levers of power in what passes for our democracy. It is a myth blown away by Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz in the current issue of Vanity Fair. In an article titled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” Stiglitz states that the top thin layer of the superwealthy controls 40 percent of all wealth in what is now the most sharply class-divided of all developed nations:

“Americans have been watching protests against repressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet, in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.”

That is the harsh reality obscured by the media’s focus on celebrity gossip, sports rivalries and lotteries, situations in which the average person can pretend that he or she is plugged into the winning side. The illusion of personal power substitutes consumer sovereignty—which smartphone to purchase—for real power over the decisions that affect our lives. Even though most Americans accept that the political game is rigged, we have long assumed that the choices we make in the economic sphere as to career and home are matters that respond to our wisdom and will. But the banking tsunami that wiped out so many jobs and so much homeownership has demonstrated that most Americans have no real control over any of that, and while they suffer, the corporate rich reward themselves in direct proportion to the amount of suffering they have caused.

Instead of taxing the superrich on the bonuses dispensed by top corporations such as Exxon, Bank of America, General Electric, Chevron and Boeing, all of which managed to avoid paying any federal corporate taxes last year, the politicians of both parties in Congress are about to accede to the Republican demand that programs that help ordinary folks be cut to pay for the programs that bailed out the banks.

It is a reality further obscured by the academic elite, led by economists who receive enormous payoffs from Wall Street in speaking and consulting fees, and their less privileged university colleagues who are so often dependent upon wealthy sponsors for their research funding. Then there are the media, which are indistinguishable parts of the corporate-owned culture and which with rare exception pretend that we are all in the same lifeboat while they fawn in their coverage of those who bilk us and also dispense fat fees to top pundits. Complementing all that is the dark distraction of the faux populists, led by tea party demagogues, who blame unions and immigrants for the crimes of Wall Street hustlers.

My book on the banking meltdown, “The Great American Stickup,” begins with the following words. “They did it. Yes, there is a ‘they’: the captains of finance, their lobbyists, and allies among leading politicians of both parties, who together destroyed an American regulatory system that had been functioning splendidly. …” They got to rewrite the laws to enable their massive greed over everything from the tax codes to the sale of toxic derivatives over the past quarter century, smashing the American middle class and with it the nation’s experiment in democracy.

The lobbyists are deliberately bipartisan in their bribery, and the authors of our demise are equally marked as Democrats and Republicans. Ronald Reagan first effectively sang the siren song of ending government’s role in corporate crime prevention, but it was Democrat Bill Clinton who accomplished much of that goal. It is the enduring conceit of the top Democratic leaders that they are valiantly holding back the forces of evil when they actually have continuously been complicit.

The veterans of the Clinton years, so prominent in the Obama administration, still deny their role in the disaster of the last 25 years. Yet the sad tale of income inequality that Stiglitz laments is as much a result of their policies as those of their Republican rivals. In one of the best studies of this growing gap in income, economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty found that during Clinton’s tenure in the White House the income of the top 1 percent increased by 10.1 percent per year, while that of the other 99 percent of Americans increased by only 2.4 percent a year. Thanks to President Clinton’s deregulation and the save-the-rich policies of George W. Bush, the situation deteriorated further from 2002 to 2006, a period in which the top 1 percent increased its income 11 percent annually while the rest of Americans had a truly paltry gain of 1 percent per year.

And that was before the meltdown that wiped out the jobs and home values of so many tens of millions of American families. “The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles,” Stiglitz concludes, “but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.” (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)

Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.

Key Components of Each Moral Act

all "3" must be licit in order for the moral act to be permissible (just).

The reigning (immoral) philosophy in the so-called "developed West" is Utilitarianism in which the "ends" desired dictate the use of any "means" available in the accomplishment of a given goal i.e. "the ends justify the means." This by the way was the calculus the Nazi's embraced!

The Nature of Morality as Philosophy

Perhaps the best way to conceptualize traditional morality is to view it as a systematic way of answering questions which ask what "ought" to be done from the perspective of right and wrong. Moral philosophy assumes therefore that notions of right and wrong, good and evil are real that is; exist, both independent of the "knower" and irrespective of time and place.

Furthermore, it claims that these moral absolutes or immutable moral norms are understandable that is, knowable by rational man as part of the natural (moral) law.

From a scholastic (Aristotelian/Thomistic) perspective "ought" questions always involve "3" elements; the object rationally chosen or proximate end, also referred to as means" the intent or further end and the circumstances.

In scholastic moral philosophy what ought to be done is strongly grounded in the nature of being that is to say the "ought" is based on the "is." From a practical perspective this means that the ought is circumscribed by the immutability of human nature that is, bounded by a fixed human anthropology. The essence of our human being then is presumed to be unchanging not evolving and is not relative to time or place. The Enlightenment needless to say wrecked havoc with this principle especially the post-Enlightenment philosophy of Utilitarianism and the post-modern tendencies toward subjectivism and moral relativism.

Finally, most decisions of any consequence made by individuals or groups have at least a moral component even if they are not primarily or fundamentally moral questions. For example, questions of public policy always involve morality since they of necessity ask what "ought" to be done--from the perspective of right and wrong--whether explicit or implied. Whenever we ask what ought we to do, not simply what can we do or is it possible to do; we have entered the realm of moral philosophy.

This site attempts to analyze current events from a moral perspective utilizing scholastic, specifically; Aristotelian/Thomistic moral reasoning.

Neomodernism Rejected

Much of Modern Philosophy Undermines the Genuine Goal of Humanity

NEO-MODERNISM: The Scourge of Western Culture

Noteworthy Quotes

"We have never had a free press. We have deluded ourselves. In the West we now have privatized censorship. There are hundreds of examples."

--Julian Assange

"Capitol Hill is Israeli Occupied Territory."

--Patrick J. Buchanan 6/15/90

“What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the ‘military-industrial complex’ has come true...War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore.”

Why do we spend so much on war when we supposedly can’t find the money to help the unemployed?”

--Former Congressman Alan Grayson

"War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

--Major General Smedley Butler

"It's time to rid the world of Nuclear Weapons"

--Desmond Tutu

"Every human being has by virtue of their humanity a claim on the right to life, shelter, sustinance, work, and medical care since they all represent "goods" the absence of which prevent the full realization of each person's humanity."

--Dr. John P. Hubert

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

--John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address

"Millions of people understand that both the Democrats and Republicans will not represent their interests in Congress."

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